Music and the Arts in Paris at the Turn of the 20th Century: Making It New

December 30, 2009 -January 20, 2010 

HONR 259T (CORE HA)

Using Paris—the art museums, concert halls, the buildings and cafes—as our classroom, we will explore the interplay between music and the arts at the turn of the 20th century when artists of every medium converged in Paris to create new visions and techniques and change the course of art forever. When Cézanne, Degas, Manet, and Monet introduced Paris to impressionist painting, the public hated the new school and the critics dismissed it. Yet even more controversial movements followed: Matisse and Fauvism (French for wild beasts), then Picasso, Braque and Cubism, then Breton, Ernst and Surrealism, all continued decade after decade to challenge conventions and demand that the public view the new art with fresh eyes. While director of the Paris Conservatoire, Fauré, brought significant changes in the curriculum of this famous institution, Debussy and Ravel produced works which departed from the late-Romantism with a musical language that was new and innovative, one that was to define modernist music. Even Stravinsky's music and Diaghilev's ballet Le Sacre du Printemps with its fragmentation, dissonance, polyrhythms, and polytonality, and use of the primitive created a riot of protest at its 1913 premier in Paris.

With the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris and a new legislation in 1902 freeing the city from its years of strict Hausmannisation, a path was drawn toward 20th century architectural aesthetics which would develop into Modernism, from the Art Nouveau fantasies of Guimard to the functionalism of Le Corbusier's International Style. Marcel Proust's masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1922) moved fiction into new terrain (the workings of the involuntary memory) and challenged readers to master a seven volume novel that introduced new themes and new structural and stylistic techniques to literature. And, against protests that photography was mere "picture taking", André Kertész presented the public with his photographs at the gallery Sacre du Printemps Gallery in 1927, thereby becoming the first photographer in history to exhibit photographs as works of art. As Gertrude Stein so aptly said, “Paris was the place that suited us who were to create the twentieth century art and literature.”  The art they created broke new and fertile ground that new generations of artists have been harvesting ever since.

Possible Field Trips

The course will include a variety of site visits for you to experience the visual arts, concerts, and Parisian Architecture.  Possible sites include: 

• Les Arts Décoratifs
• Le Grand Palais
• La Nef
• Galeries Nationales
• Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in Poissy
• Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine
• Musée Rodin
• Musée Maillol
• Musée Francais de la Photographie in Brièvres
• Fondation Henry Cartier-Bresson
• Théâtre Des Champs-Elysées
• Palais Garnier
• Montparnasse
• Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits
• Musée de l’Orangerie
• Musée d’Orsay
• Centre Pompidou
• Musée National Picasso
• Opera de Paris
• Cite de la Musique
• Salle Pleyel

Faculty & Staff

Sylvie Beaudoin, M.Mus., is the newly appointed Artist in Residence at the Honors Program of the University of Maryland. She will be the lecturer for this course in Paris. She is a concert pianist, specialized in chamber music and often heard with members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She is the founder and teacher of the Sylvie Beaudoin Piano Studio in Howard County, where she promotes the study and exploration of music in conjunction with other arts. For more details, see web.mac.com/beaudoin.s   

Cathy Barks, Associate Director of the University Honors Program, will assist and accompany the students for the first week. She will also be one of the guest speakers (literature) for the course. The instructor for the course is Sylvie Beaudoin.

For questions about the application, registration and pre-departure logistics, please contact the Study Abroad Office.